


Bright Light Living in the Shade

by polytropic



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Ghost Hunters, M/M, Multi, i guess?, mention of serial killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constance works with her unit to pacify restless spirits, and she's good at it. She doesn't need a bond to be an effective hunter, but perhaps she needs one for other reasons. </p><p>(Ghost Hunting AU I guess??)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Light Living in the Shade

**Author's Note:**

> This idea is 0% mine and 100% the property of allofthefeelings.tumblr.com, who made a post that said: "I just had the world’s most amazing fandom dream, where the artificial concept drawing people into state-mandated relationships was not D/s or A/B/O or whatever, but rather ghost hunting and who could fight ghosts had to be paired with who could communicate with them (no one was both) and the rituals involved making a scythe to prove devotion."
> 
> I read it and knew I had to write something for it. Annoyed that I didn't manage to work in the scythe forging. Maybe if I add another chapter.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of serial killers, creepy descriptions of dead things, and blatant transplanting of characters from France to the USA because I know nothing about France. 
> 
> Story title is a lyric in "Ghost" by Ella Henderson. IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S ABOUT GHOSTS. (sorry)

They discover that Constance is a Bell when she is twelve. They move to a new house and can’t afford the fee to get it checked over; Constance doesn’t really understand all of the business talk at that age, but her mother’s mouth is tight when they step over the threshold and she makes them all sleep in the same room that first week, her eyes bright and wary. Later, when she knows and understands the risk her mother took with them and the lack of other choices she was facing, Constance will be devastated.

Back then, however, she is young and interested in her new house and school and neighborhood. There is a corner store she is not allowed to walk to alone, so she begs and whines until one of her brothers takes her with. When they get home she can hear her mother in the kitchen, and she turns to put down the bag of candy she bought (somewhere unobtrusive, so that the ridiculous amount of chocolate within will hopefully go unnoticed), and there is something there. It is too thin, too unmoored to the ground, to be human, and too human-like, its limbs twisted and crushed but recognizable, to be okay. It reaches for her, one arm-like stick with too many elbows coming for her face.

To her brother Ray, all he sees is that Constance turns around, shrieks, and punches the air in front of her, arm shooting out and candy falling everywhere in a clatter. They all hear what comes next, however; the moaning, wailing scream, starting loud and tapering off, of a spirit being pacified.

“Shit, Connie,” Ray says as their mother comes running from the kitchen. He gets in trouble for using a swear word; Constance gets moved to the special gifts class at school, and sulks for four hours because her mother took away the candy she bought.

The discovery of Constance’s Bell status is a major event for her family only. The discovery fifteen years later that Annie Roi, billion-dollar movie star and the “Queen of Hollywood”, is a Candle is a major event for literally everyone.

The scandal breaks huge, of course. Everyone spends a lot of time talking about how it’s not _because_ she’s a Candle, of course not, they have nothing against it, it’s not a choice, blah blah; how the only reason they’re making a big deal about it is because she hid it. Riiiiight. Fox News runs a three hour special on the “still unexplored” theory that Bells and Candles get their abilities from pacts with Satan.

Constance only knows about the whole thing because Aramis and d’Artagnan eat up the coverage like it’s candy.

“Ugh, turn that garbage off,” Athos snaps when he walks into the office on a Thursday morning and d’Artagnan has the Fox “report” up on his laptop again. “Why are you watching that?”

“Hey, know your enemy. First rule right?” Porthos offers. He appears to have been unwillingly drawn into the broadcast by d’Artagnan’s interest. He glances back at the screen and makes a strangled noise of rage at some blatant lie.

“No, first rule: know where you end and your enemy begins.” Athos shuts the laptop emphatically. D’Artagnan’s protests (or perhaps the feeling of Athos’ irritation) draw Aramis in from the back file room, and he and d’Artagnan start whining about how it’s a ‘defining moment in the public discourse about our identities’.

“Don’t care! Briefing now!” Constance declares loudly, which to her slight surprise actually shuts them all up and gets them to sit down. Athos clears his throat to start and shoots her a grateful look as he opens the file.

She feels a little guilty, because she’s been going home at night and following the coverage herself. She can’t quite help it; it was something about the video of Ms. Roi, hand up to shield her eyes from the flash of camera blubs, calmly declaring that she has spoken to spirits since she was twelve years old. Constance has been hooked, whether it’s by the echo of her own discovery all those years ago, or by the cleverness of how Roi hid her ability. Her ever-present shades apparently concealed when her eyes would glassy and far-seeing, the gloves (the Old Hollywood touch that magazines have been praising her for for years) covered the dark stains of the myrrh that Candles can never fully wash off, and of course celebrities are always wearing Bluetooth headsets and directing odd comments seemingly at the air. All in all it’s brilliant, and Constance has never felt the need to hide but she’s pretty impressed with Ms. Roi’s resourcefulness. She made a sockpuppet account just so she can go on YouTube and say as much to all the haters, and if that’s not obsession she’s not sure what would qualify.

She focuses fine on work, though. Always does.

“—possibility of some convergence activity,” Athos adds reluctantly, and Constance sits up straighter and starts really paying attention to the briefing.

“I want point,” she states.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” That’s Athos’s way of saying he knows it’s a good idea but doesn’t want it to happen nevertheless. (Constance considers herself something of a specialized Candle in this realm; instead of interpreting the dead, she interprets “emotionally stunted Bell”)

“If there’s convergence activity, that means there might be enough energy to target a bond. Give me a good reason not to send in the person immune to that particular problem.”

“Constance is point,” Porthos agrees, his brow furrowing as he examines the floorplan of the abandoned warehouse that has just been revealed to contain at least four spirits. “I want me and d’Artagnan second position. I’m getting something off the picture already.”

“We’ll take six then,” Aramis agrees easily, shoots a look at Athos to confirm. They have one of those silent bond conversations that Constance watches with covert fascination; between Aramis and Athos it’s always such a push-pull, their shoulders adjusting and eyes narrowing and widening as if a lifetime of cranky nagging is happening in the space of a moment. Whenever Porthos and d’Artagnan do it it’s more like in the movies, that whole falling-into-each-other’s-eyes romance stuff. Though a movie would never show the big, strong Candle cupping his tinier Bell’s face and telling him to calm down and breathe. It doesn’t fit the weird, prescribed roles that they’re supposed to fall into, that whole “stoic warrior and emotional psychic” bullshit handed down from the Crusades (as if those teams were any kind of role model. As if they didn’t make far more agonized ghosts than they dispelled).

Constance gives Athos and Aramis just enough time for her to start feeling like the fifth wheel, and then breaks in.

“Do we have any historical data at all? Anything to let us know what happened?”

“Nothing,” Athos admits. They all shrug, resigned and a little amused. It’s not exactly surprising; you don’t call in the elite team for the easy ones.

It’s a serial killer. Always a possibility when multiple spirits are crowded into one place, but this is Constance and d’Artagnan’s first. She thinks she’ll be able to tell earlier next time, if not by the fragile, crystalline quality of the air than by the shapes of the spirits themselves. They are wounded, all of them the same gaping maw where their throats should be and huge slashes down their torsos. The rest of them is blackened as if burnt, which she later realizes is from the lye used to dissolve the bodies. When they scream—spirits always do—the sound comes not from their nonexististant mouths, but from their wounds.

They don’t target the bonds. That’s a blessing, really, because Constance can _maybe_ hold off four spirits on her own but really doesn’t want to try. Instead their convergence power, the melding of spirits’ vitality that comes from dying together or lingering together in the same place for long enough, goes right for the Candles.

“Don’t!” Aramis yells when Porthos falls to his knees and Constance makes for the spirit closest to him with grim intent. “Don’t, they just, they want to be heard!”

Bullshit they do. They have surrounded Porthos now, heedless of Aramis’s attempts to entice at least one or two away. One reaches for his temple with its cracked, grotesque fingers and d’Artangnan snarls, chops his knife through the air between him.

“Don’t you dare.”

“They saw his face, I have his face. Book! Now!” Porthos’ eyes are still closed and his huge shoulders are crumpled in a way Cosntance hates but they haven’t touched him yet, at least. D’Artagnan fumbles out the heavy, leatherbound journal from his side pocket, not taking his eyes off the shapes surrounding Porthos, and hands it over.

“Is he still alive? Come on love, you can tell me, it’s all right, everything’s going to be all right,” Aramis wheedles next to him. Athos and Constance flank him, Athos’ hand white on his sword and Constance’s steady. This is another reason she takes point, another reason there’s always someone on the team without a bond in place; she will watch the spirits, while her partners watch their Candles.

“Don’t touch him,” d’Artagnan demands again. This time his knife nicks the tip of a skeletal, twisted finger as he brings it down, and the spirit shrieks.

“She’s cold.” Porthos is getting that far-away tone, his eyes half-closed and dreamy. They’ve let the spirits crowd him too close, Constance decides. He’s too in the middle of them. The sketch is half-done underneath his fingers but they’re moving more sluggishly now; it’s gone on too long.

“You can’t help that. No one can, because she’s dead.” She is blunt, cruel with it. That’s her job. “Aramis. Start talking.”

Aramis glances at Athos first, which is fair because he’s technically in charge but also annoying. “Got it. Darling you’re cold and tired and it’s time to put it down now, you fought hard and it worked, we’re here and we’ll get him and he’s not going to win, so you can rest. You did it. Let us do this last little bit for you while you go somewhere else where no one can ever hurt you, would that be good? To be safe? It will be safe, I promise,”

Porthos doesn’t join in.

“I’m warm and they’re cold,” she hears underneath Aramis’ steady tones. “I could help.” His big shoulders reshuffle a little, his neck tips back, too lose. Fucking fuck, he’s too far gone.

“No you damn well can’t. _Move_.” D’Artagnan’s sword clears the space around Porthos in an instant and the spirits scatter, squalling. “Up, up, you stupid _bastard_ , who said that was yours to give away, huh?” He shakes Porthos, hissing his recrimations of worry, but Constance can’t wait for them to sort this out; she has to trust he’ll get his guard back up because Aramis’ attempt at pacifying has definitely not succeeded. She tips her head back and meets burning white eyes, cold and furious. The spirit seems to gather herself, the brief fuzzing of her outline that Aramis managed to cajole sharpening back into a hard, bright edge, and then she swoops.

Constance runs her through in one smooth motion. The familiar shriek sounds and she’s already got her guard back up to face the next one. They tried things the gentle way, but now it’s her turn.

Constance considers herself to be a compassionate person. But the overwhelming, all-reaching compassion of the Candle is not for her. She sees the restless dead not as they appeared in life but as they are: hears their inhuman shrieks and watches their misshapen, angry grasping for her life. They are not human any more. They seek her and her partners’ warmth not out of familiarity but out of hunger. And though she feels for them, she’s not willing to risk a single living person to bring them peace.

She asks, of course, what they look like to the others. What Bell doesn’t? Aramis’ descriptions are flowery, fanciful, he always manages to work in some grace or dignity or deep sadness in their eyes and face. Porthos tells her less about how they appear and more about who they were: “he had children”, “she was a carpenter”.

This time, after the job is done, she doesn’t ask. Porthos is quiet and wild-eyed as they gear down, wash the herbs off their hands and clean their equipment. The other three drift closer slowly, naturally, their arms bushing his and their hips bumping more and more each moment. They will all crowd into his bed tonight, she knows, will remind him with whispers and touches that he is alive and deserves to feel warm.

She knows she has a standing invitation to join, would be welcome any time. Sometimes she considers it, especially when one of her partners is hurting and she wants to add her affection to the mix, to help protect him the way she’s been trained to since childhood.

At the end of the day, though, she holds back. Presses kisses to their temples and lets them head home first while she finishes up the paperwork. There is something within her that resists, that insists she isn’t ready yet. She’s embarrassed that she’s apparently such a traditionalist, but there it is: Constance wants her first time to be with her Candle. She’s saving herself for her bond, as archaic as that is these days.

After the case has been passed off to the police with sketches and as much testimony as Porthos could coax out and record before the press of their hunger got too much for him, Constance goes home and watches more of the unfolding Roi scandal. She’s not particularly proud of herself for watching this crap, but she’s not going to beat herself up about it either, she decides. She has a stressful job. She’s allowed some guilt-free trashy viewing habits.

They get a week of downtime after the serial killer job. Mostly because it turns out that what they gave the police is enough to lead to an arrest, and the bureau wants to make sure no one leaks their role in the affair for fear it’ll affect the indictment (testimony of the dead is admissible but tends not to play well with a jury).

When they come back after their vacation, they get put on a protection detail. That’s, to put it mildly, really weird. They’re trained in communication with and pacification of spirits, and yes technically that extends to protecting individuals who are considered high-risk for a haunting, but they’ve never actually had to before.

“Are you sure this is a good use of our time?” d’Artagnan asks with typical bluntness when Director Treville gives them the assignment.

“I’m not, but we’ve been asked for a special favor by this individual’s management and it behooves the bureau to comply,” Treville responds, with a twitch of his moustache that says there’s something he’s not telling them.

“God, what is this management company, the secret service?” Aramis jokes, then he flips open the file and makes a weird, high-pitched noise that Constance has never heard before.

“Huh,” Porthos says, flipping through the file himself. “Athos?”

“I’m not happy about it but we’re doing it.”

The grumpy tone and Aramis’ weird giggling are enough to intrigue Constance, and she opens the folder herself. The first thing her gaze lands on is a photo, a glossy headshot. Annie Roi is looking slightly to the left of the camera, neck tilted, hair an artful tumble. Beside it is another photo, this time of some kind of surveillance, a shot of her getting into her car and looking back over her shoulder. It’s been treated with a revealing solution, and behind her where she’s looking back, a dark smear hovers in the air.

“You’re not serious.” Her voice comes out quite flat, almost annoyed. All she feels is surprise.

“As serious as the manager who believes Ms. Roi may be in danger.” Director Treville looks them all in the eye one by one, his typical pre-mission gauging of their states. In the two years she’s worked under him, Constance still isn’t completely sure what he’s looking for. They say some Candles are in tune enough with the spirits that their abilities extend to the living; that they can read auras and even minds. She’s pretty sure that’s bullshit, but sometimes Director Treville’s piercing gaze gives her pause.

“We’ll take this seriously,” d’Artagnan promises. Given that Aramis is still giggling to himself, it’s not super reassuring.

Aramis is clearly still struggling not to laugh when they meet the client outside her home the next Wednesday.

“Ms. Roi. Big fan,” he says, holding out his hand for a handshake. Behind him Athos rolls his eyes. Several flashbulbs go off; there is a crowd of reporters, both local and national, camped outside her home, and they went wild when the team arrived in their official bureau van. It’s not as though they’re the most popular division of the government, but they do tend to make for good news. The bright lights and the mess of people makes Constance nervous, though; with all the flashes and moving shapes, it’ll be very hard to see any spirit activity.

“Anne, please. And thank you all, though I’m afraid it’s a wasted trip.” In person Ms. Roi—Anne—is tiny, a good few inches shorter than Constance and petite. She looks flawless, of course, but in a less polished way than on the screen; her dress is impeccably tailored but a soft blue and flowing, comfortable in a way her red carpet dresses never are. She has forgone her sunglasses, perhaps because she no longer needs them to protect her cover, and her eyes are blue too. She looks…delicate. Deceptively so, as her manager exits the house behind her and she shoots him a look that could freeze mercury.

“Armand, would you like to explain to the nice bureau team why they’re wasting their time?”

“I would not.” Her manager, tall and greying with ramrod-straight posture, doesn’t even look up from his tablet.

“Ms. Roi—“

“Anne.”

“Uh.” Athos appears stymied by that. It’s a little funny; clearly he isn’t comfortable calling a client by their first name, and is equally uncomfortable disregarding a direct request. Constance decides to take pity on the poor man.

“Anne.” She steps to the front of the group, and Athos shifts a little to make room. “We would not be here if we hadn’t reviewed the information sent to us and agreed that our presence is necessary.” She’s not lying; the number of spirits gathered around Anne in the photographs they were sent definitely indicates she is functioning as a beacon of some kind. It’s not the sort of thing a team as experienced and highly trained as theirs is usually placed on, but it certainly warrants some level of intervention. “We recognize that it’s an imposition, but the more you cooperate with us, the sooner we can have this sorted out and you can get back to your life.”

Anne’s mouth works for a moment. And then there it is again, the same powerful dignity that so captivated Constance on the news: her spine straightens, her mouth firms, and she nods.

“Whatever you need. I apologize for taking up your valuable time, but I’ll cooperate. Agent…?”

“Bailey, Constance Bailey.”

Constance takes the offered hand in a handshake, and the entire world stops.

There is no sound. The babble of the reporters, Anne’s manager tapping away on his tablet, even the sound of her own breath, they all vanish. No motion: her team behind her, the leaves on the trees, nothing registers. She feels vertigo, so powerful she has to close her eyes. Or, not vertigo perhaps, because it has nothing to do with gravity, just this all-consuming pull that makes her feel as though her insides are being drawn out of her, forward into the person holding her hand.

Something is _touching_ her. Not physically, so much more vitally than anything could ever touch her physically. She feels it, feels it make contact with her self, that inner image and sense of her experience of the world that she uses when she wants to think about something or figure out how she feels. Her awareness of her core being, the brightness in her chest that holds what is fundamental about her, has suddenly turned way, way up, it’s suddenly somatic in a way it’s never been before, and it just as suddenly is _touching someone else_.

Anne. Anne?

She feels herself being recognized. She feels…known, as never before, and it’s terrifying but also incredible, a deep-seated need she didn’t even know about suddenly fulfilled. Anne is seeing her, fully, her attention completely on Constance and her acceptance absolute. And Constance sees her in turn, not in detail but in essence, who she is. It’s beautiful.

Things have moved inside of Constance, she feels almost unrecognizable inside. She opens her eyes and meets Anne’s wide, stunned blue gaze and thinks, _You_.

“You’re kidding me,” Aramis says, hushed and amazed.

“No fucking way,” Porthos breathes.

“Oh my god, did they just…” says one of the reporters.

And that’s how Constance Bailey and Anne Roi bond in front of God, Constance’s unit, eight news channels, and about fifty thousand viewers nationally and internationally.


End file.
